Match preview: Atlético vs. Getafe

Atlético return to league action and chase for third place

Simeone needs to help the players concentrate on the task at hand with Getafe

While the Champions League draw might have thrown up another meeting between two cross-town rivals, it is Getafe who Atlético need to be most concerned with this weekend. The two sides are due to meet on Saturday afternoon in a return to league action for los rojiblancos.

Kick-off at the Vicente Calderón is set for 16:00 CET.

Atleti need a victory to keep up the pace with Valencia, who beat Eche 4-0 away from home on Friday evening. A win will take them back within a point of Valencia, and Atleti will need to stay close behind, hoping they slip up before the end of the season.

Moyá won’t be available to face his former club, after the goalkeeper suffered a hamstring injury in Tuesday night’s Champions League victory over Bayer Leverkusen. It’s probably a good thing for Moyá – the last time he played in the fixture he was on the wrong end of a 7-0 thrashing.

This does hand a first league appearance to Jan Oblak, the hero of Tuesday night’s penalty shoot-out. The Slovenian has not featured at all for Atleti in the league, as Simeone has instead preferred to field the €16 million signing in the Copa del Rey.

With Moyá injured, Oblak could see an extended run in the first time, handing the 22-year-old the ideal opportunity to show Simeone what he can do.

Atleti will also be without Miranda, who starts the first of a two-game ban for his sending off against Espanyol last week, and Raúl García, who picked up an injury in midweek.

Mandzukic is also absent from the starting line-up for the fourth league game in a row. Twice a substitute, once suspended and now struggling with an injury, he has been left out of Cholo’s squad for the game.

Simeone has been playing with Torres and Griezmann up front in training, and could start with both on Saturday, although it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Griezmann handed a rest after playing 120 minutes on Tuesday.

We could also see a rare start for Raúl Jiménez, although Atleti need to be careful of the so-called ‘big game syndrome’ – the art of performing extremely poorly after a midweek European fixture. They will need to keep their concentration.

“We have to play an intense match,” Simeone told the media. “We need a win and we have to start looking for it from the very first minute. We need to win and hold on to the important position we have in the league.”

It will be interesting to see which eleven the coach goes with – as a win in the league is rarely more important than it is on Saturday afternoon.

Atléticos all over the world will be hoping the win in midweek will be the catalyst for a change in their recent form – and hand them their first league win in four games.

How strange is that Cholo and Mono didn’t judge Moya by just one game and still signed him after the 7-0 but they judge Oblak by only Olympiakos game ?!!

I would have asked Simeone for rotation as I usually do, as we all usually do, but since Gabi, Tiago, Godin & Siqueira & Ansaldi didn’t play vs Bayer and I’m sure 4 of them will start today, and with Gimenez, Koke & Grizi who are very young and won’t be very tired after the 120 minutes and with Torres who just played 37 minutes we actually will have a fresh team

But today I will ask Simeone for 2 things :

1- Give Juanfran a break
The man is the one with most minutes this season along with Godin (3420), but he is one year older and his position is more physically demanding
Since you obviously trust Gamez, you should play him in his original position and rotate between the 2 of them and have some faith in Siqueira & Ansaldi .. at least against teams like Getafe, Cordoba & Granada

2- Give Jimenez a chance
Last season, Adrian, Sosa, Diego & Cebolla helped us too much at this time, especially the first 2, and you should ask the same thing from Cani & Jimenez this season, because without them we are just 19 players, 18 with only one GK, not enough at all
You trusted Cani in the most important game of the season -and that’s the old Simeone I was looking for- and he didn’t let you down, he won the foul then made the pass to Mario who scored the goal .. no one can ask for more
But Jimenez can and will give us more, he is fast, he has a good control of the ball, he can dribble, and most importantly, he seems very confident despite the long time on the bench
If Torres played today 24 minutes more than Jimenez he will be have played more minutes since coming back in January than what Jimenez played from the start of the season .. this how few Jimenez’s chances were
Please give him more .

Chewie

Now you’re being unfair to Moya – I watched the 7 goals again and can hardly blame the man for anything. All of them were from inside the box, some from 2 meters. Plus a masterpiece by Costa and an deflection. Maybe he could save one or two but that wouldn’t matter.

Oblak’s first goal was from outside the box and the last one between the legs. Plus I remember him conceding two long shots from L’Hospitalitet. This is not to say that he is bad. I like the guy and am curious to see how he does in the league. By the way, did you know that Oblak in most Slavic languages means ‘a cloud’? Nice surname for a goalkeeper.

Farzad From IRaN

today it will be so easy match for us
I hope we won’t miss koke
jesus games is better than filipe luis
where is siqueira??

No I didn’t know that, and it’s a good information to know
And that’s what I talked about many times, this website has many people from all around the world and it would be very nice to share some interesting stuff from their cultures from time to time even if it’s not very related to football .. but they don’t

Maybe I was harsh with Moya -who I really like too much- but it’s very hard to defend any GK after conceding 7 times in one game, maybe 3 or 4 !
In fact, just few days ago I was defending Mohammad Al-Deayea, the GK of Saudi Arabia who conceded 4 goals vs France in 98 World Cup, but he was man of the match for me, because he saved other 4 goals

And I think you also are being unfair to Oblak against L’Hospitalet, the first goal was a deflection, while the second was an impossible shot, or a “golazo” as El Cholo said

And by the way, is “Jan” pronounced as it’s written, with “J”, or is pronounced “Yan”, because I heard both

Chewie

Yeah, as much as I like Moya, he is not a match-saving goalkeeper, he is what I call a ‘functional’ keeper, the one who’s playing good as long as the whole team is playing good. He’s very confident and organised but lacks the explosive quality of people like De Gea or Diego Alves. I think after 3-4 goals he just gave up.

I would definitely pronounce Jan with a ‘Y’.

The Getafe match was crazy – Raul with two insane headers, Adrian with a magnificent run, Villa and Costa scoring. Good old days…